It must be said that LIPs are unwieldy and often vague documents. Each council seems to do it rather differently. Fortunately for us the Hammersmith and Fulham one is rather readable and self-explanatory. The latest LIP is the first formal response by the borough to The Mayor (of London)’s Cycling Vision from the spring, and also contains some hints on what the Mayor’s Cycling Commissioner sees as priorities in the borough. Hammersmith and Fulham has the unfortunate distinction of being neither a borough taking part in the Central London Grid nor an outer london borough able to bid to be a mini-holland. As such, the LIP, along with superhighway and quietway programmes are the best hope of seeing changes on the roads in the borough.

2) Ongoing issues
John and Alex noted their requested meeting with the council not settled yet, but should be before end of the year.
Hammersmith Bridge – Group now looking at data about traffic over the bridge, and so a count was discussed. John Griffiths said we need two volunteers to make a successful count. Alex keen we count cyclists on the road and footway as well. Sima and others keen we also count those on the mall (north bank of the Thames). John G suggested we could do with a speed gun, Alex said he had access to one. Timing was discussed and 7:30-9:30 was chosen as a target time, aim to do survey by close of following week. Alex, John and Sima said they were keen to do count at meeting. Alex I also keen that we undertake an east-west axis count somewhere else in borough later this year to complement this north-south axis count.

The White City opportunity area plans (into which this development should fit!) spoke of “permeable and inclusive public realm to encourage walking and cycling” and said “The majority of new trips in and out of the area will be made by public transport, walking and cycling, to avoid adding to road congestion.” However, the cycling content of the plans on Westfield site is:

This simply isn’t good enough. There are no plans presented for new cycle routes. There isn’t even talk of extra cycle parking. Existing cycle parking at Westfield is typically fully utilised except for the racks at the far north of the site which are too far from any useful destinations. Those near the library and the southern interchange are typically full or nearly full at all times. No covered bike parking is provided. No secure bike parking is provided. It is also typically a 400m or more walk from the cycle parking to the average shop in the centre.Continue reading What are Westfield proud of?→

Provision for cycling in this scheme is not compatible with the Mayor’s Cycling Vision, your own aims for casualty reduction or a twenty-year design life. On the design life in particular we believe that the lack of coherent cycle planning in this design means if built as planned it would not last twenty years without significant and costly alterations.

Two metre wide cycle lanes are welcome but not if they are discontinuous and disappear at junctions and bus-stops where they are most needed.

Protected lanes should be provided given the levels of traffic on these roads and you need to make use of bus stop bypasses as seen on the Superhighway 2 extension and trialled at the Transport Research Laboratory for TfL.

Off-street parking and loading bays may help remove these uses from the carriageway but placing them on the inside of a cycle lane creates conflict. Design should be developed that places cycle lanes inside of the bays instead.

Two-way cycling on one-way streets is welcome but entry and exit alignments not good enough quality for Lime Grove or Pennard Road and Richford Street in particular is ignored and left no-entry despite regular use. As we stated a year ago, we want to see two-way cycling on many more streets in the borough, and support further examination of suggestions that may come in during this consultation.

There also remain levels of pavement cycling by both children accessing local schools and adults that show provision on these major roads is not subjectively safe. Like with two-way cycling we see providing safe space on streets as an intervention that helps reduce this behaviour.

The junction of Goldhawk Road and Hammersmith Grove has several failings chief of which is the removal of a cycle lane heading Westbound whilst widening both Westbound lanes.

There is potential in this area to trial cyclist phases and low-level lights.

Where innovations necessary are yet to be approved please arrange this within your existing phased delivery plan.

Should it be necessary we would support a further consultation if it helps enable improvements to be delivered. Perhaps a forum such as that held annually by the City of London to help engage those who cycle in their area could help your plans come closer to the expectations of cyclists in your borough. More open and regular discussions ahead of consultations would be of benefit to us all.

A consultation opened on 9th September 2013 and will close on 6th October 2013 for regeneration scheme for an area the council terms Shepherd’s Bush Town Centre West. This is a project to regenerate the public realm focussing on part of two main roads (Goldhawk Road and Uxbridge Road) and one residential street (Lime Grove) in an area to the west of Shepherd’s Bush Green. These main roads are to some degree paralleled by the A4 and the A40 so traffic is by far local rather than long distance.

As a public realm project most of the changes are focussed on pavement space and pedestrian experience, especially around Shepherd’s Bush Market. There is currently a public inquiry into plans to redevelop the market itself. There are gains for cyclists here as well, but they are not all that they could be, and they do not seem to plan for the future envisaged in the Mayor’s Cycling Vision. It’s worth noting that a priority for the council is partly for this to be a project to utilise SuDs (Sustainable Urban Drainage Solution) and also from council papers it appears that TfL (Transport for London) have selected it to be showcased in their Public Realm improvements website. Cost is £3.5m which is £2.5m from TfL Major Schemes budget, £500k from Section 106 (local developer contributions), £200k council flood risk management and £300k from TfL LIP (Local Implementation Plan) funding for the coming financial year. The Council hopes to begin the works in early November 2013 and it is expected that the scheme will be carried out in phases and completed by March 2015.

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We are the local branch of the London Cycle Campaign (LCC) for the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. We also cover Shepherd's Bush but that's not part of the name of our borough, a fuller guide to where we cover is here.